


The 5 Times Hughes Realized Something About Ed+ the 1 Time Ed Realized Something About Hughes

by wittyjinx



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Edward Elric, BAMF Roy Mustang, Elicia is adorable, Gen, Genius Edward Elric, Gracia is amazing, Maes Hughes Lives, Parental Maes Hughes, Prodigy Edward Elric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wittyjinx/pseuds/wittyjinx
Summary: Pure Fluff. Just Hughes (still alive) interacting with soft Edward and realizing things about him.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Edward Elric & Maes Hughes, Edward Elric & Team Mustang
Comments: 34
Kudos: 392





	The 5 Times Hughes Realized Something About Ed+ the 1 Time Ed Realized Something About Hughes

**Author's Note:**

> I re-watched FMAB and I decided that I wanted to write something... so here's this.

1  
Edward was known as the Fullmetal Alchemist- Hero of the people.

And it was no secret that Ed lived up to this name, helping people, repairing things, forming strong allies that he could use in the future (though he never thought of it like that). He was the caring alchemist, the one that people could rely on, whether it’s to capture a criminal or to fix their stove.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he heard that Ed was spending time in the slums.

But it did.

And it worried Maes.

Because Ishvalans didn’t like Amestrians, didn’t like the military and they especially didn’t like Alchemists.

And Ed was all three. And Maes couldn’t help but fear for him.

His first thought was that Ed was being blackmailed, that some Ishvalan was holding him accountable for something.

Then he thought that maybe he was being threatened. Although… Ed? Being threatened? It was a little out there.

But he drew up the courage to enter the slums to find him.

Instantly, people were staring at him.

Wondering what he was doing there. Wondering if he was going to cause more damage.

It didn’t help that he was in uniform.

But he continued in, looking for the familiar head of golden hair with eyes to match.

He turned the corner and realized that all his worries were for nothing.

Edward was in the middle of a wide circle, a large group of kids around him, kicking around some sort of ball.

All of the kids were half playing the game, half throwing themselves at Ed, giggling and talking in quick Ishvalan that Maes couldn’t begin to understand, but then Ed responded, just as fast in Ishvalan, bringing a smile to every adult around the group.

Some of the adults turned and went inside, clearly trusting Ed with their children, while others were a little more wary.

And Maes understood both reactions.

He had been a little worried when Ed had first visited, and had been nervous that this rough, abrasive, rambunctious teen would ruin his precious Elicia. He was worried that Ed would push Elicia away, breaking her little heart. 

But Ed hadn’t.

Ed played with her, and made her giggle uncontrollably. He told her stories of his travels and taught her some games that other children had taught him, and slowly, Ed gained Maes’ trust. 

Maes knew that he could leave Elicia in Ed’s hands. He knew that, if necessary, Ed would protect Elicia with his life. No harm would come to her.

And Maes could see that some of the Ishvalan parents believed that too.

They trusted Ed with their kids.

Trusted him not to damage their society that was being carefully rebuilt.

As Ed settled to the ground, children crowding around him, ready to hear a tale or play one of the many cultural games that Ed brought…

Maes stepped away, leaving the slums with a smile.

Ed was just fine here, protected.

Hero of the people.

All people.

And to Ed, that included the Ishvalans, the same Ishvalans that often get overlooked by the law were not overlooked by Ed.

2  
There was something… odd about Edward Elric. Something that took a while for Maes to actually notice.

Of course he knew that the boy had automail. It was just a part of Ed, his metallic limbs and fiery red jacket that were making his name appear more and more often.

And he also knew that Ed didn’t exactly trust everyone he met. 

He couldn’t, not when he was dealing with criminals and idiots and homunculi and traitors. But Maes had never seen it expressed so cleanly.

Ed trusted everyone under Roy’s command.

Maybe not at first, but he did. Who he didn’t trust, was everyone else in the building. 

When Edward had to be diplomatic, had to walk and talk and breathe politics with a smile, he always had the generals or officials on the side with his automail arm. His right side.

But when he walked with Roy, or his crew, or Maes, or his brother… he kept them on his left side. 

Like he could protect them if something came from the other side.

It touched a little piece of Maes’ heart.

Did Ed know that he was doing it? Probably.

Did everyone else? No, and that’s what made him dangerous. When he could catch an official’s hand when they reached for his hair, to treat him like a child and he could catch them off guard. He could tighten his hand and break their wrist but he didn’t and they would know the strength he possessed.

But the ones he trusted wouldn’t have to worry about that. As much as they teased him and joked around, they would never see the strength of his automail first hand. Only from the sidelines, watching with awe.

3  
Out of everything Ed had done in his career, Maes thought that nothing could surprise him anymore.

He’d seen Ed take on alchemists twice his size and win.

He’d seen Ed take a hit that would’ve killed anyone and stand back up to fight.

He had seen Edward ready to die to keep Al safe.

But Maes had also seen the softer side of Edward Elric.

He had seen him entertain Elicia, sooth her tears with a practiced motion.

He’d seen the big brother side of Edward. Seen him carry Elicia, seen him pick up her toys, seen him play with her and he would smile for her.

The same smile that Maes only saw him use with Alphonse.

Maes was sure that Edward couldn’t surprise him anymore.

He was wrong.

It started on a day when Gracia had to go out shopping, and Elicia wouldn’t stop crying. Usually Maes could calm her, but she just wasn’t having it, and then Ed turned up at his door, having talked with Gracia, and knew that Elicia was probably still crying. 

And he had a violin case with him.

“Can I come in?” Ed asked awkwardly as Elicia hiccuped loudly in the next room.

“Yeah,” Maes said leading Ed in, and he sat on the floor, across from the sobbing girl, and pulled the violin out of its case, raising it to his shoulder and started to play.

He started out a bit slow, obviously out of practice, his automail fingers not always making the right movement, but slowly Elicia’s eyes opened and her cries quieted as she started at Ed, fascinated by his motions and the sound.

“Thank God,” Maes murmured and Ed let out a little smile.

“I didn’t know you were religious,” he said and Maes ruffled his hair.

Ed continued to play.

And play.

And play, until Maes could see his fingers turning red from the strain.

“You can stop if you need to,” Maes said, and Ed shook his head.

“I’ll stop when Mrs. Gracia comes,” he said and Maes nodded.

When Gracia came in, she became aware of the music playing. And the fact that her husband was sleeping against the wall… and she was ready to scold him.

He shouldn’t fall asleep in the hallway! Especially not when Elicia was roaming free, and she wasn’t there to stop her from getting into any trouble…

Then she saw the source of the music.

She saw Ed sitting across from her baby, playing the violin, and she quickly snapped a picture of the cute sight.

And she knew that Elicia was in good hands.

4  
It was no lie that Edward Elric was smart.

He was. There was no getting around it.

Ed must be, to pass the state alchemist exam with flying colors and to shock everyone with his sharp tongue and even sharper wit.

But only those closest to Edward knew that he was a genius.

A prodigy.

A legend.

Edward could talk alchemic circles around every other state alchemist.

The only one who could remotely keep up was Alphonse, and when the two of them got together, the problem could be solved in minutes, or even seconds as the two seemed to share a mental link.

But even Edward by himself could solve the problems quickly.

Without Alphonse as a sounding board for ideas, Ed had to sort through them by himself, and it took a little longer, but not enough to actually matter.

Not when Edward could do complex equations in his head, or figure out codes in the blink of an eye.

Not when Edward showed that he was fluent in multiple languages because he “picked them up wherever he went,” and while it was true the boys traveled a lot, Edward had a gift for languages, foreign sounds dancing across his tongue like they were meant to be there and the people around him could only watch in awe as he translated seamlessly. Not when Maes had been struggling to figure out a “code” and Edward had stepped in, translating the note with ease, explaining that it was a little-known Drachma dialect.

And when Maes asked how he knew it, Edward just shrugged. “I met someone a while back who spoke it. We only spent a week with her so we needed to learn quickly,” 

Roy used to be the smarted alchemist that Maes knew.

He was! Regardless of the persona he puts on, Roy was intelligent, knowing flame alchemy the most, but also being able to figure out the equations. Maes would go to him when he had an alchemy question, like if something could be caused by alchemy, or if the alchemy in the picture had a certain style, and usually within the day, Roy would come back with an answer. Decoded notes that were made clear for anyone to see.

But Edward was faster, pushed himself further.

He could tell how old an alchemist was based on the transmutation, golden eyes sharp as he examined evidence.

In a blink of an eye he would figure something out and then describe it, explain it in clear words so that Maes and the other non-alchemists could understand.

Then there were the times when Edward and Alphonse switched between languages.

Sure, there were the occasional real languages, slivers of Drachma or Aerugo, but it was mostly their code. Or other people’s codes. For instance, when they were trying to figure something out for Maes, in the middle of Roy’s office, they turned to each other and were talking nonsense shifting from cake recipes to stock market prices to woodworking expertise into something that sounded suspiciously like Roy’s code, then into something Maes couldn’t even recognize. 

When they finished, they turned back and began speaking normally, explaining what they figured out to Maes and a started Roy, the awed office behind them.

And if that wasn’t enough, Edward was a genius in combat as well.

He was a close range fighter, with his automail glinting in the sunlight and his hair swinging as he beat up criminals.

Maes had seen the blade that Ed pulled from his automail arm. 

Maes had been trained to use knives. He knew that you had to train the knife into becoming an extension of yourself, the same as any limb. 

But Ed never had that learning curve. He was brutal, with a knife that he pulled from his arm that he learned to fight with.

He had weight behind those metal limbs and he knew how to use it, training his body until he was virtually unstoppable.

And Alphonse was even worse.

He’d seen the Elric brothers spar.

Never once had he seen Ed win, no matter how hard they went.

And Maes had seen them fight together.

That was where they truly shined. Where bouncing off each other, swinging and pulling and maneuvering around each other and turning into a hurricane of hurt...

The Elric brothers were geniuses together.

But Edward was a genius, a prodigy, the Fullmetal Alchemist all by himself.

5  
It was no secret that Edward Elric… didn’t take care of himself as well as he could. Maes always knew. He was devoted to Alphonse, and the price of that care was often Ed’s health. Maes could see when Ed got run down. When the weight of the world settled back on his shoulders, when the only thing that could pull him away from his work was asking him to come have dinner, and if he still said no… tell him that Elicia misses him. Mainly because she usually does, and Ed would never.

NEVER say no to his darling Elicia.

Elicia always helped Ed unwind, unknowingly. 

Asking to braid his hair, and then planting herself in her ‘little big brothers’ lap so that he can braid her hair, and you could watch the tension leave Ed’s shoulders. You could see him relax, and smile gentle as he braided Elicia’s hair.

Maes loved watching it.

Loved seeing Elicia work wonders that no one else could.

And Ed would lose track of the time, sitting and playing with Elicia for hours until he realized what time it really was, and he would feel guilty and start apologizing as he hurried away, even though Maes told him repeatedly that he could stay, stay with Elicia and just sleep in their spare room.

Take a day to take care of yourself, because what would Alphonse do if Edward worked himself to death?

But Ed would refuse, apologizing again and again until Maes told him that it was okay, and that he didn’t mind and ‘Edward Elric if you apologize one more time I’m going to make you stay here for the night.’ And Ed’s mouth would always click shut as he left, still relaxed from his time with Elicia…

And for Maes… that would have to be enough.

+1  
Edward Elric never had a father.

Never had someone to teach him to repair the chairs when they broke in his house.

Never had someone who would protect him from the monsters under the bed.

Never had someone to take care of their mother when she got sick.

Never had a father to warn them about alchemy.

It all went down because Ed was young and naive and believed that he could bring his mother back because his father’s books said he could. There was nothing in those books to warm him about what was to come.

When Ed joined the military, he still didn’t have a father.

But his family got a bit bigger.

Hawkeye took an almost maternal role with them, the others acting sort of like protective older brothers from Ed and his brother.

But no one wanted to deal with the paternal issues Ed so obviously carried.

(And he carried them for a good reason- that bastard abandoned them right when they needed him most and he never came back. Never even bothered to think about them again. Never sent a card… nothing.)

Then Hughes stepped in, and took them home to eat a home cooked meal… something they hadn’t had in a very long time.

And then Ed met Elicia, and he loved her. She was like the little sister he never had, always wanting to braid his hair and have her hair be braided and Ed was always happy to oblige.

He could never say no to Elicia.

Then Hughes asked Ed to babysit for the first time. And he got to tell her stories in abundance.

Hughes was the first person Ed opened up to, and when Hughes mentioned that Elicia cries when Gracia isn’t there, Ed didn’t hesitate to bring his violin over the next time he saw Gracia in the market.

And Hughes hadn’t looked at him odd… just a little surprised?

Hughes slowly but surely crept into a sort of parental role in Ed’s life.

Not quite paternal.

Not yet.

Not until Alphonse mentioned off-handedly that Hughes was like their father.

And Ed made the realization.

He did have a dad.

Not by blood, but though every other way that ever mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Well! I hope you enjoyed! Be sure to comment and tell me what you thought, even if you're just correcting my grammar. :D


End file.
